


Joycie

by linoleumground



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Best Friends, Friendship, Heavy Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Platonic Soulmates, Suicide Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25395466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linoleumground/pseuds/linoleumground
Summary: In 1980 before moving to his warehouse, Murray feels as though he can't go on in his paranoid state any longer. This is the letter he writes to his best friend Joyce. It is an apology and an explanation. It is an expression of regret.
Relationships: Murray Bauman & Joyce Byers
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Joycie

**Author's Note:**

> It's never expressly described or stated but just in case: Trigger Warning for Suicide Attempt/Suicide Note.

Hi Joycie.

I’m so sorry. My apartment’s a mess, I think I cleaned it once, maybe twice, since I’ve lived here. Don’t feel the need to clean it. I know you will, but there’s nothing left of value in here. Anything that matters is already in the box beneath this note. Joyce, I know you’re reading this, I know you. You got wind of what happened and you came as soon as possible. That’s who you are. I don’t know what to say, Joyce. I guess I can explain. You probably already have an idea. I’m alone Joyce. I’m more alone than I’ve ever been in my life, and I have no one to blame but me. If I really think about it, and I have, I think I have always been alone. That’s such a shitty thing to say. I don’t know how to explain it, Joyce. Even when things were good, even when they were at their very best, I still spent every waking moment wrapped up in my own brain, and it made me feel so distant. I wish I could’ve communicated that to you earlier. I wish I could’ve called you up in ‘70 or ‘72 or ‘74 or any fucking day. I wish my brain let me answer the phone or leave this God-forsaken apartment. I wish I burst through the double doors of this crumbling building and ran to you, ran for hours until I couldn’t stand upright. But I can’t. I couldn’t. And I’m never going to get that chance again. I’m crying. I haven’t cried in a long time. I’m sad all the time, I think, hurt, angry. I think at some point it all just crammed together and I just felt numb and tired. I listened to your voicemails today. Every single one since ‘67, they stopped at some point in the 70s. I don’t know if my inbox was full or if you gave up. I hope it was full, I want so badly to believe it was full. I’m rambling, maybe I’m stalling. There’s so much I want to tell you and yet so little has happened since we last spoke. I’m sorry I didn’t get to be Uncle Murray. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you at my mom’s funeral. I’m sorry I let you give every little piece of your soul to me only to hand it back to you wrapped in newspapers in an unmarked box with a Chicago return address. I left you. I left you when you needed me and I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I keep apologizing, I feel like I have never made the right choice in my life. Maybe that’s why I feel so awful all the time. Do you remember the river you took me to when we first started hanging out? I think if I could choose one place to be for eternity it would be there. I hope that brings you some peace. That you can pack up an old blanket and bring the boys and sit by the river bank and know that somehow I’m there. None of this makes sense. My brain has been scattered since I came out of the womb. I have a million thoughts at once. I’m so tired of thinking all the time, Joyce. Overthinking especially. I miss you. I miss home. I miss my mom. I know you hate her, I know you have your reasons but I miss Karen, and God knows I miss Jim. I miss Hawkins and high school and Scott and Newby, I miss waking up and feeling like maybe today will be okay. I don’t want to wake up anymore knowing that it won’t be. I’m so tired of going through the motions like I’m in some trance. I’m tired of thinking something outside my door is going to end it all if I don’t beat it to the punch. I love you, Horowitz. You have always been it for me. Where my story starts and ends. I want you to know this isn’t your fault. If one thing on the planet could change my mind it would be you. But you’re not here, and that’s my fault, that’s my problem, that’s me being the paranoid piece of shit everyone always knew I’d be. Part of me hopes you never read this. That somehow you never find out I’m gone, that my body feeds the rats in this apartment before anyone even finds it and you go through life blissfully unaware that I was ever this weak. I’m so fucking weak Joyce. I have been fighting this for almost 30 years and I am not winning. I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you. God this is pathetic. If I’m lucky, if I get one good thing in life, in death, I’ll see you at the river bank. I’ll come to sit on that tattered old blanket and I’ll hold you and I won’t have to worry about anything anymore. Wouldn’t that be a dream? For the worrying to stop?

Goodbye, my sweet Joycie.

Bauman.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to mya (@milfbyers) for hyping up everything I write. this, much like my last fic, falls into the timeline of the fanon we created. this takes place about 11 years after all i want.


End file.
